Winterreise at the Schubertiade Schwarzenberg
   by Melanie Eskenazi

   For anyone who loves Lieder and beautiful surroundings, the Schubertiade
   Festival is heaven on earth. For two weeks in June, and again in
   August-September, the world's leading exponents of Lieder and Chamber
   Music come to this delectable spot in the unspoilt Vorarlberg, where
   the musical standards are as high, and the audience's appreciation
   as knowledgeable and enthusiastic, as anywhere in the world.

   Most of the concerts are held in the newly-built Angelika-Kaufmann-Saal,
   idyllically set in a gentle curve of mountains, and it is not only
   the music which conspires to make the experience a perfect one; the
   hotels are geared to the Festival, which means that not only do you
   get daily reviews on your breakfast table and a "Schubertiade-Bus"
   to transport you there and back with your fellow concert-goers, but
   even mealtimes are based around your evening - at our hotel, the
   "Schubertiade Menu" offered light main courses before the concert,
   with delicious desserts and wines served on our return.

   As well as the spectacular views afforded by the hall's position,
   there are further delights such as the signal for the concerts to
   begin and to resume after the interval - no bells here, but two horn
   players performing Schubert duos! Other unexpected pleasures included
   running into artists at every turn - hardly surprising considering
   that the village is tiny - and it is certainly an experience to take
   one's interval drinks at a Lott/Murray/Johnson recital with the likes
   of Thomas Quasthoff, and to have lunch in the same tiny dining room
   as him and Justus Zeyen on two occasions, just hours before their
   sublime recitals.

   Our week began with Thomas Quasthoff and Justus Zeyen giving the
   greatest live performance of Winterreise that I have ever experienced
   - and I have heard a lot of them, from Pears to Bostridge.  This was
   a performance without a weakness. Of course, the place was packed,
   and from the first bars of "Gute Nacht," Quasthoff had us all gripped
   as though he were a not-so-ancient mariner. This great bass-baritone
   does not merely relate the songs, he inhabits them, yet without undue
   histrionics; instead of show, we experience what can only be called
   "was uns in tiefsten inner bewegt." His pianist is no less remarkable,
   with a poetic touch which makes the instrument seem an extension of
   the voice. Quasthoff cannot be an easy singer to accompany; his
   approach is not rigid, and there were many times when Zeyen seemed
   to be seeking guidance from him in an unexpected phrase, but he
   carried it all off with aplomb.

   This was a Winterreise of strong contrasts; in "Gute Nacht," for
   example, Was soll ich langer weilen was only just on the right side
   of loudness, whereas Will dich im Traum nicht storen" was so quietly
   sung that one felt the audience leaning forward. Overall, the
   interpretation had moved on from his Wigmore Hall (with Charles
   Spencer) performance - that was a mainly angry, at times muscularly
   stoical journey, whereas this was elegiac, poetic, heartbreakingly
   forlorn and deeply involving. "Der Lindenbaum" was a case in point;
   the crucial line of temptation, Hier findest du deine Ruh" was no
   longer sung as though it were an ironically false suggestion, but as
   something in which the narrator so much longed to lose himself; you
   no longer felt like shaking your head ruefully, instead you just
   wanted to weep at such desperate anguish. Indeed, a sense of the most
   unutterable sadness prevailed throughout the cycle, in which the few
   moments of bravado were even more poignant; there was no suggestion
   that this wanderer is on the brink of madness, or that he is some
   sort of stoical wayfarer trudging his way towards either death or
   transfiguration - on the contrary, this was Winterreise as I had
   always dreamed of hearing it but never yet had - possessing a sense
   of innigkeit which informed every note, and sung and played with a
   rapture and sense of devotion which had me on the edge of my seat,
   and the edge of tears, throughout.

   In such a wondrous performance, there were so many high points that
   it is difficult to select - but as I write this five days later, I
   can still hear Quasthoff's melting tone and heartfelt word pointing
   at Doch an den Fensterschieben / Wer malte die Blatter da? and his
   unaffected yet poignant phrasing of Von Wonne und Seligkeit.  In
   songs such as "Einsamkeit," which sometimes appear to pass unnoticed,
   singer and pianist established and maintained a true Schubertian
   gehende bewegung, and although there was nothing exaggerated at Ach!
   dass die Welt so licht, no one could have been unmoved by the way in
   which the sentiment seemed to go from heart to heart.  Similarly,
   "Der greise Kopf" was a small miracle of expressiveness and a perfect
   demonstration of how to involve your audience in a narrative; Und
   hab' mich sehr gefreuet held within it all the false bravado of the
   narrator, and the final Auf dieser ganzen Reise!  made your throat
   constrict with its sense of vehement longing.

   Best of all was "Das Wirtshaus," another song where I sometimes
   'switch off' and find myself waiting for my favourite, "Die
   Nebensonnen." Quasthoff and Zeyen made you hear the shape of the
   music as well as the narrative, and it is impossible to give high
   enough praise to Zeyen's rapt, poetic, devoted playing, as well as
   to Quasthoff's miraculous handling of the words - Die mude Wandrer
   laden / Ins kuhle Wirtshaus ein conveying all the doomed yet inviting
   temptation of the grave, Bin matt zum Niedersinken, giving a real
   sense of aching weariness, and the final lines having an almost
   canon-like grandeur.

   The final lines of Die Nebensonnen are marked pp for the piano, and
   here Quasthoff carried on this quietness in his singing, intoning
   the words so slowly and softly, and with such a tremulous air of
   rapture, that you could hear the audience almost breathing as one.
   "Der Leiermann" brought the cycle to a triumphant close; after a long
   silence, a richly deserved standing ovation for a performance which
   I cannot imagine being equalled by any other singer and accompanist
   today; I'll finally get to hear Goerne and Schneider in Winterreise
   at Glyndebourne in October, but until then, the only final comment
   which seems appropriate for what I heard on this occasion is from
   Donne's The Relique:

     Alle mesure, and alle language, I shoulde passe
     Shoulde I telle what a miracle (s) he was.

Janos Gereben/SF
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